


The Most Powerful Force in the Galaxy

by fadesfanfic



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Conversation, Friendship, Gen, Light Side, Lycaea Archeliou, Spoilers: Chapter three Sith Warrior, Standalone, The Force, alignment talk, dark side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 18:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8068312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadesfanfic/pseuds/fadesfanfic
Summary: After a near fatal assault, Lycaea Archeliou (Togruta Sith Warrior) is trapped in a medbay with nothing to do but think and talk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Years are all Dromund Kaas years, not Earth Years.
> 
> Spoilers for beginning of Chapter three Sith Warrior story

The lights are too bright here.

It's maddening that that's all she can think – that the lights are too bright – but it's the only consistent thought going through Lycaea Archeliou's head. She should be in pain. She should be out for revenge. But the truth is she just feels empty.

Baras's betrayal was two years in the making. Lycaea knew that he would get tired of her when Overseer Tremel first described him. She only thought he would try in some way she could avoid it – maybe he'd find another errand-girl and send her as an assassin. She was confident she could defeat any assassin he threw at her.

But cave ins and rocks are another thing entirely. All her training with the Force and all her rage – it barely prevented her from being crushed to death by Draahg. Still, she was partially trapped, unable to remove the rocks over her without causing an avalanche, and had to _cut her own legs off_ in order to crawl to safety.

So now she's in a medical facility orbiting Nar Shadaa. And all she can think is that the lights are too bright.

Jaesa has been at her side almost constantly. Saying she should've come with her into the cave. But Lycaea's glad she went alone. No one else was down there. She didn't know if she could've shielded one of her other friends and – 

And she didn't want to look weak.

As she lays on the cot, trying to force her newly integrated cybernetic leg to move, she can only replay Vette's face as she found her crawling out of the Quesh swamps. Anguish, concern, distress, and pity.

It's the pity that gets her.

Broonmark pretends nothing happened. He says that once Lycaea is healed up, she'll be able to vanquish Draahg anyway, so there's no need to be sad – only out for revenge. Pierce has just followed the orders that she issued – and for once in his life, the orders Quinn issued as well.

Quinn hasn't been anything except a consummate professional during this ordeal – which is a disappointment. She thought they were getting somewhere. But now his voice is closed off and he barely looks her in the eyes. Moreover, how he senses in the Force has changed back to how it was when they first met, all reserved, distant, and cold, whereas just before he was letting some bright cracks of passion through.

She doesn't need to guess why. A Sith is supposed to be strong. And in this instant, she is very weak. It's completely thrown her dynamic with him and Pierce out of the water – though thankfully Broonmark seems unaffected.

But that's a little easier to deal with than Vette and Jaesa. They're – trying to take care of her. It makes her stomach turn. On one hand, Jaesa's healing and Vette's cracking jokes to cheer her up are helping. On the other hand – even though she's learned to _give_ help to people, _taking_ it always seems intensely unbecoming for a Sith. 

When Jaesa walks in, ready to try helping heal her again, Lycaea keeps thinking this. She knows how powerful Jaesa is in the Force, how she can probably see her discomfort written straight across her, yet doesn't say anything. Which Lycaea likes. Acknowledgment means talking about it, which means thinking about it more. Better to pretend nothing happened.

“How are the prostheses doing, my Lord?” asks Jaesa.

Lycaea shrugs. “Can't complain.” They have fully articulated ankle joints, and even individual toes – once her brain gets used to reading the signals, it will probably feel _almost_ back to normal.

Jaesa smiles slightly. “You never do.”

Unable to think of a reply, Lycaea shrugs again.

“Vette's talking to some of her old contacts, seeing if we have a place to lie low while you heal.” Jaesa looks to the side a little shiftily. “Though I'm not sure if she'd trust having all of the Imperials with them.”

“We're not lying low,” Lycaea says. “We're getting revenge.”

Jaesa frowns a little. “My Lord, you can't walk.”

Lycaea rolls her eyes. “Well, we'll get revenge after I figure out how. But we're not hiding. We're staying on the ship, seeing if we can't scout out allies – ” 

“Making ourselves targets for Draahg?” Jaesa asks slowly. 

Lycaea shakes her head.

Jaesa just keeps looking at her, big brown eyes full of worry, brow line tented up in the middle.

“Relax,” Lycaea says. “It won't take long. I'm a pretty quick healer.”

Jaesa's eyes skim over Lycaea's legs, and she seems transfixed at the stumps.

“What?” Lycaea asks.

Jaesa shakes her head quickly and refocuses on Lycaea's face. “No scars,” she says.

Lycaea lets herself smile a little. It's ridiculous and vain, but she always liked that she didn't heal with scars. “It's the Force,” she explains.

Jaesa waits patiently.

“I use the power of my hate to force my wounds shut before that can happen. But more crucially – before I can bleed out.”

Jaesa nods. Her sense in the Force shifts a bit, and Lycaea can read a new emotion peaking through – doubt.

“Something troubling you?” Lycaea asks.

“It's just, my Lord – ”

“I've said you can call my Lycaea,” she says. Then she grimaces. “Sorry, please continue.”

“You're one of the most compassionate people I know,” Jaesa says. “You do a lot of good in the galaxy. But when we fight – the power of your hate – ”

Lycaea lets a slow smile creep across her face.

“It's frightening,” Jaesa finishes. “I have a hard time reconciling that with everything else I know about you.”

Lycaea sighs. How to explain this to a Jedi? Or someone like Jaesa in general? To anyone outside the Empire – Force, even to some people inside the Empire – it would seem awful.

“I'm not criticizing you, my Lo – Lycaea” Jaesa says gently. “I just – I wish I understood.”

Lycaea rolls her eyes. “I know you're not. I don't think I've ever heard you criticize someone.”

Jaesa waits. Lycaea would suppose she doesn't know what to say – but even with her Force powers, and the ability to sense her friends' surface emotions generally, she still has a hard time reading her. Ever since starting her light-side Sith crusade, Jaesa's used her Jedi-like control to keep her emotions completely hidden from other Sith – and sometimes even Lycaea.

“I use hate because it's effective,” Lycaea says. “Sith are supposed to draw on their emotions. That's the strongest one I feel.”

“Not love?” Jaesa asks, a little hopefully.

_Love is confusing_. But Lycaea doesn't say that. Instead she says, “Hate is more powerful than love.”

Jaesa pulls back a little, skepticism written all over her features.

“Think about it,” Lycaea says, painfully aware of how much like the other Sith she must sound to Jaesa. “It's easy to stop loving someone you once cared greatly for. But once someone's earned your hate, it's _impossible_ to stop.”

Jaesa shakes her head. “I used to – I used to strongly dislike you,” she says. “When you were hunting me.”

Lycaea grimaces. Thinking of what she did to Jaesa on Baras's orders makes her sick – if she were Jaesa, she wouldn't be able to stand being around her. 

_Maybe Jaesa's just a better, more forgiving person than I am._

“But not hate,” Lycaea says. “You hadn't met me. Just like I hadn't met you. It was all impersonal – a dick-measuring contest between Karr and Baras.”

Jaesa freezes up a little when Lycaea mentions Karr.  
_Stupid, should've known that would be a sore spot._

“Master Karr,” Jaesa says. “He was so... _bitter._ ”

Lycaea grins slightly. “Like me?”

“I am trying to listen to your teachings, Master,” Jaesa says. “I don't think you're the same.”

“Don't call me 'Master',” Lycaea says. “We're more – peers. I think you've taught me just as much as I've taught you.”

Jaesa's Jedi-training isn't enough to hide her blush.

“When I'm a Darth, I'll promote you to Lord,” Lycaea says.

Jaesa smiles slightly, but then shakes her head. “That's not what we were talking about.”

Lycaea sighs. The cybernetics attached to her leg stumps are beginning to itch. It feels all wrong, and this conversation is just making her antsy. 

“Karr was bitter and hateful because he couldn't let this thing with Baras go,” Lycaea says. “An egotistical man. Unable to accept he wasn't able to do everything he wanted to do. That's probably what puts you off hate – you've seen it as the tool of impotent old men.

“But didn't you hate them a little then? You were a tool to them. They thought they could use us – use _you_.”

Jaesa shakes her head. “I didn't know what to feel.”

_Been there before._

Lycaea continues, aware that if she doesn't get this off her chest now, when she's feeling sappy, she probably won't ever tell Jaesa.

_Don't tell her everything._ She doesn't want Jaesa to view her as – weak. Not again. Just enough that she understands, not enough to earn any sadness or pity.

“Growing up an alien in the Empire,” Lycaea says slowly, deliberately. “You're subject to all kinds of hate from these impotent old men – men who think you're lesser because you're different, your culture's different, your brain's different. When you've been brought up to view that as the natural order of things, wouldn't _hating_ them in retaliation be freeing?”

Jaesa doesn't say anything. She looks thoughtful, eyebrows knitted with concentration.

“'Passion brings me strength, strength brings me power, power brings me victory, through victory my chains are broken, the force shall free me',” Lycaea quotes the Sith code. “I know you have a distaste for it. I know it's been used by Sith who think that freedom and power means doing whatever you want, fuck everyone else. But you can turn their teachings back on them. Like Lord Racin.”

Lord Racin is another Sith Lycaea's worked with – previously a slave to the Empire. Her command of the Dark Side is impressive, and Lycaea can tell her passion comes from the same place as hers does.

“I believe I understand what you're saying,” Jaesa says. “I don't know – I don't know that it would ever work for me.”

“It doesn't have to,” Lycaea says. “Your command of the Light Side and the Jedi Code is impressive. But when we continue this 'Light Side Sith' crusade, I hope you keep in mind that there can be Sith who do good who use the Dark Side. There are some Sith who are too angry and resentful to ever follow a Jedi-like code.”

“I will, M – _Lycaea_ ,” Jaesa says. She sighs. She walks over and sits on a chair next to Lycaea's cot, a little slumped over.

“Is it exhausting?” she asks. 

Lycaea shrugs.

“Having to hate to fight?”

Lycaea shakes her head. _“Having” to hate._ What a weird way to phrase it. Lycaea wouldn't be able to turn off her hate even if it would make her the most powerful Sith in the galaxy. 

“It's freeing,” she says. “I've had my emotions control me for the first twenty nine years of my life. It's nice to to use them for a change.”

Jaesa smiles slightly. “Thank you,” she says. “For taking the time to explain it to me.”

_Why would you thank someone for that? How do you respond? Um ---_

 

“I always have time for you, Jaesa,” Lycaea says. There. Maybe that sounded good. 

_Could've just said “you're welcome” though._

“Now,” Jaesa says. “I think I owed you some healing.”


End file.
